Duck Stamp 

Artist Statement: 

I knew based on the assignment and watching the artist's statements that we needed to make this drawing as realistic as possible. I found a few sources to help with this. I wanted to pick the masked duck because I really like its uniquely colored blue beak. I wanted to take this sketch slowly to make it very detailed, so in the end, I made a sketch, and then made the background, and then colored it in with colored pencils. The reason for my materials colored pencils and watercolor, was because obviously, I wanted to make the background look as much like water as possible, and watercolor kind of provides its own depth effect if you do it correctly. And for the colored pencils, I thought it would be the easiest to get a good amount of detail, and not overpower the drawing at the same time. My goal was just to make it look very realistic, and like a masked duck in its natural habitat. And I did this through the way I did this art and materials, but also by doing research. 

I used watercolor paint for the background, and assorted colored pencils for the duck 

After I got my multiple sources I printed out a copy of a screenshot of one of them and then tried to copy a very close sketch of its body shape onto some watercolor paper. I also added a duck-shaped reflection just like there was in the reference. After the sketch was done I began my watercolor background, and I realized very quickly that I am bad at watercolor painting. After three tires at a good background, it was on another paper so I needed to transfer my duck over, so I cut it out and glued it on. At first, I thought it looked good with some visible lines of colored pencil on it, but I decided it wasn't realistic, so I made them pop more, a lot more thick color, and more visible. I tried to match the colors on the reference generally close and tried to copy the head as much as possible, but I chose things like where the spots went, the wings, or how many tailfeathers it had. I tried to do some blending, shading, and a lot of layering making it as detailed as possible.  Now having a really good duck, and a good background I needed to make the reflection. I ended up using an exacto knife to fine-tune the edges of the duck, and take off the reflection portion. The reason for this is I saw other people just to it as shadows, and I wanted my duck to have ripples to show movement, so I just drew a basic shadow reflection, and incorporated it into the ripples. I then added a simple background of cattails to finish it off because that was the type of environment that the masked ducks live in. I think the final product was really good, I worked many hard hours on it, and I'd say it's realistic.